well, here we are! I really should start coming up with a good schedule to post stories and I think I'll aim for Friday. It's my least busiest day, save for when summer quarter starts I'll have homework I'll need to do, but this quarter I hope to surround myself with a good group of people who can help in my motivation to get things done at a reasonable time.

In other words, college is stressful but I refuse to ignore you guys!

So here is chapter two for everyone and I really hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for the reviews so far and please leave any questions, concerns, and/or greetings down below!

Here we go!

chapter two.

tell me what you want

days since seeing Mikan: four

desire to see Mikan: low

Which was odd, Natsume had to admit, but he knew one thing was for certain: the next time he saw her, he would have to have the talk with her. No, no the birds and the bees because clearly she knew all about them. He meant the relationship talk, the one in which he would ask her what they were and where she saw them going. But, based on the near arguments they had gotten into before, he knew exactly where she saw the two of them going, and that was nowhere.

So really what was going to happen was Natsume would call it off, because there is no denying the fact that he wants more. For a while he thought he could handle what they had, but there is something missing. Something incomplete. He wants to talk to her each day, he wants to hear how her day went, how it could have been better. He wants to take her out to lunch whenever they had a break in the day, and then surprise her with occasional fancy dinners. Most importantly, he wanted to introduce her to his parents. For quite some time now, Natsume would go home and his family would automatically sense that something was different.

"You have a pep to your step," his sister observed almost suspiciously, but he didn't tell her it was because he had found the woman he could see himself spending the rest of his life with. And so, he simply said his firm was doing exceptionally well, and it looked like he was going to win a big case that was sure to gain publicity once everything was said and done. Which, conveniently, wasn't a lie. But it wasn't the truth.

Most of Natsume's time, now that he was beginning to come to terms with this "break up" of sorts, was spent away from campus so he didn't have the chance of accidentally running into Mikan. It was no secret that she was looking for him, even his former professor contacted him wondering when he would be back around to provide Mikan with a couple of practice cases. He replied with how busy he was as of late, and that it may be within Mikan's best interest to refer her to someone else—but everyone knew that no one was better than he.

Especially Mikan.

Her texts started out short and innocent, asking him where he was and if he wanted to get together to go over a few cases. Or, more scandalously, if he was in the mood for her to show up later that night. Natsume didn't respond to any of them, which resulted in the loss of her polite attitude. Now the texts were long and they were angry, until she concluded with:

Fine. We'll speak on your terms.

Which didn't mean that she would acknowledge his feelings for her, but rather they would speak when Natsume was ready to speak. And, as of right now, Natsume didn't see that happening in the foreseeable future. Rather, he decided to bury himself in work. He had two court cases lined up for next week that he really needed to get a handle on. For one he needed to form an entirely different argument due to information his client withheld until literally the last second, and the second was mostly ready to go he just had to, well, go. But it was hard because the second one was also the one that he was going to allow Mikan to sit in on and, if they weren't speaking, that put Natsume between a rock and a hard place.

Should he still invite her to go? Or should he go back on his word and go without her.

He knew that if he did the latter, Mikan would really never speak to him again, even if their relationship ended up working in a platonic sense. He also knew that if he did the former, he would suffer through having to watch her sit and listen in such a perfect fashion as everything she did was perfect. She only ever did things in a nice manicured way that made Natsume want to kiss her, and touch her, and—

His phone buzzed, and at first he thought it was a text but it buzzed again. And again. Which forced him to look down only to find that it was his former professor, professor _. What in the world does she want, Natsume asked himself, checking the time of day. It was definitely during her office hours.

"Hyuuga," he answered, making it seem like he didn't know that it was her.

_ responded with fervor, "Oh cut it, Natsume, I know you've had my number saved for years." And then she said something that nearly had Natsume floored. "Tell me, what happened between you and Miss Sakura?"

Natsume cleared his throat, looking about his apartment for an excuse to get out of the conversation. "What do you mean," he asked, trying to seem oblivious while still airing on the side of indifference. But it was hard when the name of the only woman you've ever cared that deeply about is brought up in conversation.

"You cannot lie to me, boy," she said. "Why do you think I introduced you two in the first place. Tell me, did it work?"

And so Natsume told her everything, mostly because he learned during his freshman year of college that this woman could see through every lie. Second, because he truly wanted her opinion. _ was great a forming telling relationships with her students, to the point that she can describe what they are thinking in any given situation. It's how Natsume got into most of his trouble, and out of it when he called on her for an alibi. But, moreover, _ thought that it would work, and she was hardly ever wrong.

Natsume, after purging his problems, dropped into his armchair like a lost boy who was crushing after the school's popular girl. Who would ever think that he'd end up in such a situation? Natsume sure never did, which was why he was wracking his brain, wondering when it had gotten to this point, and all he could think of was the look in her eyes when he first met her.

"You've got a serious problem here, Hyuuga," was all _ said.

Nastume snorted. "You think?" It wasn't a question. "She needs her space so I—"

"Nonsense!" Natsume flinched at the sudden outburst. "You either go after her or you give up, there is no in between. There are feelings involved here and sacrificing, at the very least, your friendship is never the answer. Especially when she is going through such tough times—"

Natsume leaned in, ignoring every single piece of information but one: "What do you mean tough times?"

It should be known that there are very few instances in his life in which Natsume felt like the scum of the earth. These instances sum up to two, in fact. The first was when he accidentally broke his sister's nose when they were kids. The second is when he opened his college acceptance letter without his parents. Now, with what Professor Langely was about to say, those instances summed up to three. And it also explained why Mikan hadn't tried to contact him in a while.

"Well," Professor Langely sighed. "News came in of her grandfather's passing. Well, allow me to correct myself: he isn't exactly her grandfather. As you may know Mikan lived in an orphanage—" Natsume didn't know this but he allowed Langley to continue "—which came to be after she was abandoned on an elderly gentleman's doorstep. One of the eldest kids contacted Mikan and, though they expressed that there is no need for her to return, she has taken it pretty hard knowing that she couldn't. She hasn't come to class for the past couple of days, and it seems like he roommate is out of town so—"

Natsume hung up.

Rather, Natsume hung up and immediately began searching for his jacket, his keys, and his shoes. He made sure his cell-phone was secure in his pocket for when he needed to make a couple of phone calls he thought would be useful in this situation. He grabbed his wallet so that, when he left his apartment and ran into the corner store he passed by every day to get to his car, he bought some chocolate. The most expensive kind available, too, because the occasion really called for it.

He got into his car and, within seconds, he was on the road. He weaved through cars expertly, keeping an eye out for cops but also being a aware that this was truly a time-sensitive issue. He would check his phone often, as if Mikan would miraculously know what Langley had told him and would call for him. Either way, he was before her apartment complex within minutes and it didn't even cross his mind that they had some sort of odd relationship they had to sift through. Because, come on, the woman he loved was hurting and all he wanted was to be there for her, whether that meant as a friend or as something more.

When Natsume rounded the corner of the second floor and found himself standing before her apartment, he didn't hesitate in knocking. In fact, he knocked a total of three times before he realized that she was just going to pretend like she wasn't home. He knew she was home, because he could see through the front window that her bedroom light at the end of the hall was on. So he did what any reasonable man would do, he began to search for the spare key.

To hear Mikan tell it, she was only slightly forgetful. But as someone who had had relations with her for over a year, Mikan barely remembered to put on her shoes let alone grab her keys before leaving the apartment. So, he just knew that there was a spare lying around somewhere and, low and behold, there was! Sitting in the flowerpot that hung just above her doorbell was a spare key, covered by maybe a single layer of dirt. How original, he sarcastically thought to himself as he unlocked the door and tried to make his way in.

Tried because, as soon as he had a peek into her apartment, he was obstructed… by Mikan.

"Not now, Natsume." She had definitely been crying, that much is true, which was why Natsume shoved harder. "No!"

Natsume sighed, "Would you just move, what's wrong with you?!" He didn't mean it in the sense of "your grandfather is dead" but more of why was she suddenly exhibiting violent behavior. It was kind of threatening. "Langley told me about you grandfather… and I have chocolate."

Mikan relented in her force against the wall, so much that Natsume almost fell into her but he expertly caught himself like he always does. She opened the door wide enough for him to see her disheveled and depressed state, and it took so much strength not to pull her into him right then and there. So he just stared… sadly.

She snorted at him, snatching the chocolate from his hands, and looked him up and down. "Does my appearance shock you? If so, you can leave now. I have the chocolate."

Natsume glared. And where did this attitude come from? It was very unsettling. "Are you okay," he asks almost as a precaution as he steps into her apartment, closing the door behind him. As he bends over to take off his shoes, Mikan stomps over to the living room where she drops onto the couch and begins to tear open her "gift" of sorts.

"Am I okay," she says almost to herself, shaking her head as if it were a dumb question which, in her defense, it was. "No I'm not okay, why would you even ask that?" That's fair, Natsume conceded as he slowly approached the couch. She didn't lash out, which Natsume took to mean that he could sit beside her. Which he did. And then she began to dump all of her emotions onto him: "I have no one. I mean, I have Hotaru but she up and left the country for a couple of weeks on an internship and I can't bug her with my feelings. I used to talk to my grandpa—" she choked on her tears which we definitely beginning to form at this point "—but now he's gone, which I knew would happen sometime soon because he broke his hip a few months back and he hasn't been back to his original health since. I just wish I got to say goodbye, or see his face or—" she paused to control her crying. But she couldn't.

"And I wanted to call you," she cried, and Natsume couldn't help but note how beautiful she was even when crying. "But I knew you would take it the wrong way, especially with what's been going on which is definitely my fault but god I felt so alone."

At this point she had completely forgotten about the chocolate which had fallen to the floor. Natsume had to, for he decided to bite the bullet and go for it. Bear his heart and soul. He took her face in his hands and brought her forehead to his. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling her proximity, before he opened them and pulled away slightly to look into her golden-brown irises. "I love you," he confessed, though it wasn't much of a confession at this point as it had been made obvious for quite some time.

She looked away, "Don't make this about you right now—"

"It's not about me," he interrupted. "It's about you. I love you, which means I will do anything and everything that I can for you. I know a few people, just let me make some calls and I can get you on a flight to Japan in a matter of hours. You just have to let me know that that's what you want."

Shaking her head, she explained, "They had a makeshift burial for him yesterday. Plus, that place isn't even my home anymore. My home is here, and grandpa would want me to pursue my dreams. Here."

"Then what," Natsume begged. "How do I help you? You said you wanted to call me, well I'm here. Whatever it is, just ask and I'll do it."

Mikan shook her head, and took hold of his hands. Natsume, defeated, thought that she would push them away and ask him to leave. Like she always did. But he was shocked to find that she had simply lowered them. Instead of her cheeks, he brought them to her waist, and she then cradled his face in her own hands, tracing lines along his jaw. She looked into his eyes and he saw something that wasn't lust, like it was those many times before. This time it was longing. A cure to her loneliness. But, most importantly, realization.

"Honestly," she looked around, but specifically at the space shared between them. "This is more than enough. Can you just—"

Natsume leaned forward, urging her to say it. "Can I just… what?"

She looked into his eyes. Taking them in. Etching them into her mind. And Natsume was already smiling before she said a single word.

"Stay with me."

Whoop, there it is!

I really didn't want to throw in the death card there, but what else was going to get Natsume off of his stubborn horse and go see Mikan?

Not to mention, what was going to get Mikan to lower her walls a little bit so she can realize that she wants Natsume to stick around?

Yeah, it sucks, but thanks for the sacrifice Gramps.

Also, thank you all for sticking through this newfound writing journey that I've been having. I'm really happy that I've found it really early in life, versus later.

Stick around for more stories that may or may not be related to this series. Chances are, they won't be but I know some of you want to see their relationship and I also want to see how they would interact as lawyers so…

So long, friends, and I will see you next Friday (wink wink) with a new story!